Managing mental health remotely requires managers to build connections without physical presence, enhance listening skills, and proactively check in with their teams.
Managing mental health in a remote environment is now one of the biggest challenges we face today. Over the last 18 months, countless managers in our mental health training for managers programme have shared their struggles with us.
Whether handling fully remote teams or navigating a hybrid model, many find it tough to manage mental health effectively when they’re not in the same room as their team members. Let’s dive into how we can tackle this head-on with a fresh perspective on employee wellbeing and mental health training for managers.
The Remote Challenge: What Managers Are Really Saying
Here are some key themes managers have raised:
- “How do I have a conversation about mental health if I’m not in the same room?”
- “People no longer leave their cameras on!”
- “I can’t tell if someone is okay if I can’t see their body language.”
- “We’ve lost the ‘water cooler’ conversations!”
- “My team seems okay, should I still ask how they are?”
These concerns are valid. They reflect the shift in workplace dynamics. And the good news? There are effective ways to manage mental health remotely.
Building Connection Without Physical Presence
Let’s name it: working remotely changes how we connect. In a physical office, a smile, a reassuring touch, and a coffee together all build connection. But even online, a meaningful connection is possible.
We just need to approach it with intention.
Go Beyond the Screen: Create Real Digital Connection
At the start of the pandemic, people were more engaged in online meetings. Fast forward to now? It’s back-to-back meetings, cameras off, and limited emotional cues.
But here’s the truth we teach in our mental health training for managers:
You don’t need to be in the same room to connect deeply.
What Managers Can Do to Support Mental Health Remotely
One of the biggest takeaways from our mental health training for managers is this: deep listening is a superpower.
Too often, managers leap in with advice or stories when someone just needs to feel heard. In our busy, distracted world, that kind of listening is rare and powerful.
Improve your listening by just 1%, and your impact as a manager multiplies.
Encourage Cameras On: Make Meetings Feel Human Again
You can’t force people to turn their cameras on, but you can invite them into a conversation.
Ask: “How can we make our meetings feel more human?”
Co-create a shared agreement with your team about camera use and connection. It’s not about control, it’s about creating space for real presence.
Don’t Wait for a Crisis: Check In Before It’s Too Late
Managers often tell us, “My team seems fine.” But you don’t need to wait until someone breaks down to support them.
People are masters at hiding how they feel, especially when stigma, fear of judgment, or shame is at play.
When delivering mental health training for managers to one global organisation, the sales director acknowledged he rarely checked in to see how his team were doing beyond their sales pipe lines. Following the one of the training sessions, he held an online meeting with his team, where he shared a video about stress, one of the resources we’d given to the managers. What unfolded surprised him. Several of his team shared they were struggling with stress and their mental health. One of his team spoke about feeling isolated now they were no longer working in the office and had gone fully remote. He was able to take what he’d learnt from the training to further explore the topic with individuals one to one and understand what they needed, from both the organisation and him as a leader.
In the next training session he shared the positive impact of having these conversations and acknowledged how he’d completely missed the signs that anything was going on with his team and that people being ‘silent’ didn’t mean that everything was well.
Proactive One-to-Ones: Go Beyond Work Talk
In our mental health training for managers, we often hear how one-to-ones default to tasks, KPIs, and deadlines.
But your check-ins are one of your most powerful tools for wellbeing.
Start with:
- “How are you feeling, really?”
- “What’s been energising or draining you this week?”
A wobble caught early can prevent a full-scale burnout later.
Connection Is Not About Proximity
There’s a myth that we need to be face-to-face to truly connect. Not true.
We’ve coached people around the world for over a decade. And we’ve witnessed extraordinary breakthroughs on Zoom.
True connection isn’t about body language, it’s about presence, intention, and deep listening. And yes, you can absolutely do that online.
Listening Is Leadership
When you slow down and hold space, you give someone something rare and healing: the feeling of being fully seen.
That’s what creates trust. That’s what changes culture.
Final Thought: Don’t Assume Someone’s Fine Just Because They Say They Are
Just because someone seems okay doesn’t mean they are.
In remote teams, it’s easy to mistake silence for stability.
Ask. Check in. Listen. Go slow.
Build a team culture where people feel safe enough to share what’s really going on.
Want to Equip Your Managers to Do This with Confidence?
If you’re planning mental health training for managers, we’d love to help you get it right.
Start by downloading our free guide to designing your mental health training for managers.
What’s in it
- The cost lines to pull from your last twelve months of data, so you can put a number on what poor mental health is already costing you before you ask for budget
- Thirteen questions to work through, from whether your organisation is actually ready for this to what happens if you don’t do it
- The one question I ask every client, which is the one most people have never been asked
- Why to get the C-suite involved from the start
- How to measure the impact properly, beyond the evaluation form nobody reads
- An example outline of what a programme can look like
